Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman arrested last week on charges of leaking highly classified military documents, returned to court on Wednesday to determine whether he will remain in jail pending trial.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers jointly requested that the hearing be delayed for two weeks, arguing that they both need more time to prepare for the case, according to CNN.
Teixeira will remain in custody until the new hearing is set.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Teixeira is accused of sharing highly classified military documents surrounding the U.S. and its allies in a Discord chat server with his friends.
Teixeira has been charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of classified national defense information, under the Espionage Act, according to WFAA.
The Air Force said on Tuesday that it is investigating how a single airman could have accessed and distributed possibly hundreds of highly classified documents, reported AP News.
The intelligence mission of the Air National Guard 102nd Intelligence Wing, where Teixeira served, has been postponed pending review and has been reassigned to a different division of the Air Force, according to AP News.
Teixeira was purportedly the leader of a private chatroom on Discord called “Thug Shaker Central,” where users discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to WFAA.
Teixeira supposedly started sharing information with the invitation-only group on Discord in late 2022, claiming he had government information being withheld from the public, The Dallas Express previously reported.
Since the documents have been leaked, it has forced foreign government officials to address the classified information publicly.
Included in one of the leaks was information regarding Egypt looking to sell 40,000 rockets to Russia, according to The Independent.
Egypt denied the allegations, with Ahmed Abu Zeid, a spokesperson for Egypt’s foreign ministry, stating, “Egypt’s position from the beginning is based on noninvolvement in this crisis and committing to maintain equal distance with both sides, while affirming Egypt’s support to the U.N. charter and international law in the U.N. General Assembly resolutions,” as reported by The Dallas Express.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also denied leaked information regarding the country’s intelligence unit Mossad, saying the report is “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever,” according to The National.
South Korea likewise claimed that the information that was leaked was “fabricated,” according to CNN.
UK Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace said he knew for a fact that some of the assertions in the leaked documents surrounding his country were untrue, according to CNN.
“My advice is don’t take it at face value. There are definitely things in there that I’ve seen that I know not to be true,” said Wallace, per CNN.
The number of leaked documents remains unclear, but AP News reported it has viewed roughly 50 documents. Other media outlets have estimated the number to be in the hundreds.
Currently, the Pentagon is leading an interagency effort to assess the leak’s impact on U.S. national security, according to CBS News.
